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WHAT THE HAY

A Pitch Wars Reenactment Starring Adam Levine

As soon as I heard about Pitch Wars, I fell in love. This is Pitch Wars in .gif form...

Pitch Wars is a contest where would be mentees submit for the chance to be mentored by AMAZING writers who are in that next level professionally. After the mentors help you through your manuscript, there's an agent round, and a party, and friends... and possible weight gain.

But we're not talking about that last one right now.

So a few months ago I thought I was ready for Pitch Wars. I searched the mentors, fell in love with several of them, and then I clicked submit.

And then I ate my feelings.

Then the day came... and...

THIS HAPPENED! I still can't believe it. My dream mentor MEGAN FREAKING GRIMIT chose my weird little story. She said she believed in me. She said she love it. She gushed hard core, and then put me to work.

And by put me to work, I mean she put me to work. She suggested I go from five POV's to two, make major revisions through the entire manuscript, and veer from the plot completely and rewrite the entire second half of the book. Basically she was like, I LOVE YOUR BOOK, NOW REWRITE IT.

And she wanted me to do it in two and a half weeks.

And then I ate my feelings.

Honestly, I was so excited to get started I probably weirded Megan and my mentee sibling Isabel out. I didn't even pause. I just happy clapped and said "Let's do it!!!" and ignored that tiny whisper of a "Can I really do this?"

I loved my book. I believed in it. But I knew there were things that weren't working, and before Pitch Wars, I didn't know how to fix them. I've been searching for answers for so long that when Megan gave me my nine page long (single space) edit letter full of, THIS IS HOW YOU FIX IT, the flood gates opened, and the words flew out.

I made my deadline. In fact, I finished two days early.

And I was like...

But she didn't say anything. She didn't... like read it in the next ten minutes, and then say, "It's gorgeous and amazing!" She actually took her time and went through it. Because it was written in two weeks.

And it was not gorgeous.

It was exactly like Adam Levine just shaved his head not gorgeous, like you could see the potential underneath, but come on, Adam, your hair is your pretty, don't shave it off.

I'm not posting an image. You're welcome.

Meanwhile, while Megan was working, I did this...

AND I ate my feelings...

Then finally, two weeks later, she sent me the most detailed line notes ever, with more major changes suggested... AND she gave me another two week deadline.

Basically she did this.

AND I ATE MY FEELINGS.

I knew my story was definitely on the right track, but it was a first draft that I needed to make agent ready in two weeks. I had to do the amount of revisions that usually would take me months to do in two weeks. Revise an entire novel in TWO WEEKS. I cried. I kicked things. I ate my feelings.

And then I went to work.

Megan was there for me, helping me calm down when I was panicking. Cheering me on. Giving me suggestions and high fives and "You can do its!"

I made my deadline again.

JUST IN TIME FOR THE AGENT ROUND!

(I may eat my feelings some more.)

(Oh who am I kidding, I will definitely be eating me feelings.)

I'm going into it slightly nervous, but mostly just grateful. I feel like I won the lottery and the prize is a better book. It might not be a prize for anyone else, but it's life changing for me. It's amazing the amount of work and time these beautiful mentors and organizers volunteered. I've learned so much, not just in how to write, although that can, and WILL be a blog post for another day, but also in how to be a writer. I want to be just like these kind phenomenal people who deserve all the good things.